“Amélie, I should be very glad to have a little conversation with Pélagie.”
“Well, what prevents you, my dear? don’t you see her every morning and evening, if you choose?”
“Yes, to be sure, I see her in the morning, but always in the presence of her aunt and three or four old mummies who would deprive the most impassioned lover of all desire to make love. Besides, Pélagie is very shy; how can you expect her to describe her sentiments before people?”
“Why, my dear, you ought to divine them easily enough from the hints she lets fall.”
“My dear girl, at the point we have reached I cannot be content with hints; I want something positive; in short, I want to know what sort of a person I have to do with.”
“But you are allowed to talk freely enough, I should think.”
“Ha! ha! that is delicious! but I tell you again, it isn’t enough for me.”
“In the evening, you always sit beside her; you can whisper to her and squeeze her hand.”
“My poor Amélie, you make me laugh with your provincial privileges; a man has much greater ones in Paris with young women he isn’t proposing to marry.”
“So much the worse for the girls in Paris, brother.”